Limitless Path

Kim turned and headed back to her room, and Beth headed down the stairs as well. A minute later her father joined her and Zack in the living room.

"Rachel's still talking with her. Luckily, we have a spare window from when we had them replaced two years ago. Anyway, do you need anything else after all that excitement, Zack?" her father said.

"No. I'm going to try to get as many people as I can to level one by end-of-day. Also, that idea for reinforcing the fences and building a wall is good. Get a full plan together and we can start working on that in a couple days. Let me know if you need anything else," Zack said, getting up from the armchair he was in and waving as he headed out of the Bell house.

"What about you, oh warrior queen?" Beth's father asked her with a small smile.

"I want to fight more but I'm crazy tired. I think using Crush so much really drained my energy. I don't want to sleep yet, but I'll rest and see how quickly my energy comes back without sleeping," she replied.

"Remember not to push yourself too hard. Getting too tired to fight while surrounded by enemies would be rather bad," her father commented.

"I got it, thanks," she replied, getting up from the couch and heading up the stairs.

Once she was ensconced in her room again, she sat at her desk and woke up her computer. After logging in, she got on the web and checked what people were saying about this new world. Most of the day had passed in the Americas and it was now evening, and people throughout those time zones had made good use of the daylight hours to investigate.

Beth searched through new postings, seeing a good bit of useful information. It looked like her idle speculation was correct, as people had found what seemed like both dungeons and objects spawning monsters. The number was not very high, but Beth knew the introduction to the Path would gradually increase mana density and opportunities in the world.

It seemed like there were many posts related to gaining classes. Many people talked about Young Warrior and Young Mage, but there were several other extremely common classes. There were quite a few soldier-related classes, as well as several slightly rarer but still somewhat common mage classes. Some people had also actively engaged in combat for some time, and it seemed the experience curve to level was slightly steep but was also mitigated by fighting stronger enemies.

She knew that expending her mana put her in a bad spot, though, as her Wisdom was still well within a normal mortal's. This meant, while she didn't use very much mana on something like Crush, she also regenerated mana quite slowly. It looked like many people found similar data in combat on this first day, as it seemed it took hours for somebody to regenerate from one-quarter mana back to full.

Beth knew it would still take a little time to fill her mana, so she booted up one of her favorite games, an MMO, and started crafting. Putting on some music, she whiled away a few hours just playing. It was a little strange, now that the world had become like a game, but it was still a good time sink.

After relaxing for a while, she found she had fully restored her mana and decided to test a few more things before she was done for the day. She locked her bedroom door before taking a look at her skills again, and one in particular; Ancient World Gate. She was going to try just a little experiment, seeing what the skill was all about.

Beth didn't get any information from the locked memories Liveria had left her, so she decided to do it the empirical way. Of course, absolutely nothing would go wrong with using a strange, unknown power in the middle of her bedroom right after a global catastrophe. Perish the thought.

As she thought about using the skill, a window popped up right in front of her.

Ancient World Gate[0]

Set Gate: -

Set Modifier: -

It didn't really seem very complicated, so she thought Ant and 2X.

Ancient World Gate[0]

Gate: Ant

Modifier: 2x

Commencing…

Something started rising out of her bedroom floor, and Beth almost fell off her bed in shock. She quickly realized it was the top of a doorway slowly and ominously appearing from the floor in the middle of her room.

"It really is magic," she muttered as the door finished moving into place. The edges of the frame looked like they were made of some type of packed earth, and the center was occupied by a darkness that looked like a dull piece of black plastic.

Well, at least the skill isn't weird or anything, summoning a dirt doorway of horrible darkness in the middle of my bedroom, Beth thought sardonically.

Getting up from her bed, she walked up to the doorway and examined it. Reaching out and grabbing the frame, it had the damp and loamy feel of good dirt, but it was totally solid, not leaving even a trace on her fingers.

Seeing this, she decided to touch the "door" itself. Her fingers encountered the dark barrier, and she felt a cool, slightly pleasant sensation. A small ripple spread out from the point of impact of her fingertips, but the door was quickly still again. She pulled her hand back and looked around the room, finally pulling her cell phone out of her pocket to check it.

The screen woke as she tapped the power button and displayed her login background, a picture of one of her favorite anime characters, with the time and date floating in the center. Seeing that it was still working, she slid it back into her pocket and, taking a deep breath, suddenly stepped forward into the doorway.

Everything was dark, but after a single beat of her heart, she found herself standing in a field. It was about as plain as a field could be, with what looked like regular grass stretching as far as she could see and a clear blue sky overhead. There were no trees or bushes or even any flowers, no hills or divots in the landscape, and not even a sign of a mountain or body of water on the horizon. She looked behind herself to see the door standing a step back, looking just like it did in her room.

Magic is so awesome. But also, this is pretty plain. Is this another world, or did the door make a magic lawn that goes on forever? Beth pondered.

As she continued to look around in wonder, she noticed a hint of movement in her peripheral vision. Looking toward her right, she could see an ant in front of her. It looked exactly like the mid-shin height, brownish-black ants she had managed to kill around the neighborhood. It was maybe around thirty feet away from her and hadn't seemed to notice her yet.

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Trying to step carefully and stealthily, she walked around to the left of the door and looked behind it. There was no ant waiting in surprise ambush, and she couldn't really see any others.

Well, she thought, let me check one last thing. She took out her cell phone slowly and looked at the screen after tapping the power button. The time and date still displayed, but she noted the X over the signal icon at the top right and the time of seven PM. She put the cell phone away and turned toward her first target.

After observing her target for a moment, she was unable to determine anything vital. It was an ant. A big one. She decided action might be the best course to take and assumed her fighting stance. Something she noticed, maybe a benefit of gaining the Unarmed skill, or perhaps her new class, but she felt just a fraction more comfortable in her stance and posture. She started to walk toward the ant, remembering to never let her feet get too far apart as she swiftly stepped forward.

After about five steps, it seemed the ant realized that something was wrong. Its two little antennae, which had been drooped forward and slightly twitching, suddenly shot straight up. A half second later, the ant spun to face Beth and, after locking its beady eyes on her, began to scurry directly at her.

She was already getting used to fighting these beasts, and this one was no different. In fact, she was starting to wonder if they were all copies of each other. Well, not exact, perfect copies, and ants were supposed to behave similarly, so maybe she should dismiss those thoughts. She smirked a bit at her distraction as the ant got to her and she hammered it into paste.

Common Ant level 1 slain.

She walked over to the next ant after dismissing the message, seeing it detected her at the same exact distance. She made sure she was using Identify on every single enemy, both to check them, and because she wanted to level the skill. When the ant's information came back the same, she fought and dispatched it rather quickly.

Common Ant level 1 slain.

Beth suspected that she would get rather tired of this message within a day or two. The next fight was against two level one ants and was still rather tedious, though the two opponents gave her just slightly more challenge. Turning to face the second ant after injuring the first ate up time, which nearly cost her taking another hit, but she managed to both re-orientate and kick the second ant after defeating the first. Her use of Crush coupled with the kick rather surprised her, as it lifted the ant off the ground and sent it, or what was left of it, tumbling.

Common Ant level 1 slain.

Common Ant level 1 slain.

Crush Copper[1] Acquired.

She walked outward from where she killed the two ants, checking the description of Crush, just to see. It was the exact same as it had been, and she dismissed it as she approached the next ant. As she really looked at the ant, however, she realized that it seemed a little bit different. It took her a second to place it, but she realized it was a little larger than the others, which had all been of a uniform size.

She wasn't worried, especially with the new level in Crush, though she didn't know just how much stronger it would be. She decided on caution over boldness, not wanting to get careless in case of some new attack, but she had worried over nothing. The ant acted the same as the others, noticing her within about twenty feet, turning toward her, and charging forward. She did notice the ant was just slightly faster, but it was an almost imperceptible difference.

She found the ant was a little bit faster, a little bit tougher, and that it maybe hit a bit harder, though she avoided the slashing mandibles. It took a couple hits for her to defeat the beast, only the last one infused with Crush, as she was trying to save her mana. She did get a pleasant surprise after the ant flopped down dead.

Common Ant level 2 slain.

Remaining mana converted to one copper coin.

Level Acquired.

It largely lined up with some of the things she had read a bit earlier on the internet, in terms of how many enemies killed it took to level. She took a glance at her status screen to see where she was at.

The level up did exactly what was advertised, including dumping two free stat points on her. She decided to put one each in Dexterity and Endurance. The next time she leveled she would get 2 Strength and one each of Dexterity and Endurance, meaning she would be at an even 9 in her physical stats before factoring in the two free points she would get at level 3.

Excited at the prospect, she stared at the ants with a hungry gleam in her eyes, seeing them just as walking experience bags. She moved out to fight the next ant quickly, ready for that sweet, sweet hit of leveling up and getting stronger. That hit of adrenaline would have to wait, however, as it took more than just a single kill to get that next level. It took, in fact, quite a few kills, and Beth moved outward, finding the rings of enemies continued forever. She found that there were three rings of level two enemies, with the third of these 'rings' having groups of three beasts. The fourth ring was a reset, as it was a level three ant, which was a bit larger and a bit dark than the level two. She found it was also a bit more resilient, taking a couple extra hits to kill versus a level two.

She felt the level threes were just at the right difficult for her, as a level two person, to fight against. Killing the individual level threes wasn't that difficult, but it was a bit time consuming, and she did have to run around what was now quite a large circle to get to the next ant. She emptied the ring before moving outward, finding her next challenge to be two of the level three ants. This was a bit tougher, as she had to dance around one ant, using its body to try to block the other, but she was able to persevere. When she checked her notifications after the fight, she found she had achieved several level-ups, though only one of them was an overall level, as the others were increased in skill levels.

Common Ant level 3 slain.

Common Ant level 3 slain.

Level acquired.

Unarmed Apprentice[1] acquired.

She was now quite strong, fast, and durable for a human, especially considering she was still just a seventeen-year-old girl, albeit a tall and fit one. She was also rather happy with the increase to her Unarmed, noting that she had gotten Crush all the way to Copper[3] during her fighting earlier. The problem now was what to do with her free points. If she put them in Dexterity and Endurance, she could partially keep up with her Strength, but she didn't want her Intelligence or Wisdom to fall behind. She hesitated for a little, but at last made a decision and assigned the points to Wisdom, bringing it up to nine.

She felt much better now than she ever had before. Her body felt stronger and more durable, while at the same time feeling lighter. She also felt that the trickle of mana refilling deep in her chest was just a little bigger. She knew that her stats would eventually get pretty crazy, even discounting getting a skill or ability that passively increased her stats, if such existed, but she was still very happy with the small increases.

She was now feeling rather tired. Not just tired from all the energy she expended, either, but a deeper weariness. She wasn't entirely sure what it was, but she had a strange feeling it was the gate. She had a vague sense from the locked memories that using the gate often would tax her; at least, it would while she was still quite weak. She had some vague concept that it had something to do with her soul, a thing that she was pretty sure was made up until today.

Getting her soul damaged seemed like a big problem, but the memories she had inherited told her that was not so. If she rested without overextending herself, her stressed soul would recover and be an almost infinitesimally bit stronger. Over decades or centuries, it would lead to her soul being reinforced a decent amount, giving her several benefits, not least of which was longer operation of the gate.